Monday, August 07, 2017

How Jewish scientism leads to Leftism

Rosenberg argues — and I entirely agree — that our moral senses are part of our human nature. We have a “core morality” programmed into us by evolution to enable us to interact socially and so exploit a cooperative evolutionary niche. Of course evolution doesn’t care about the morality itself, it only cares (metaphorically “cares” of course) about what leads to us leaving more descendants. It follows that (page 286): “there are no facts of the matter about what is morally right or wrong, good or bad”. But it also follows, since humans are highly similar genetically, that “most people naturally buy into the same core morality that makes us tolerably nice to each other”. ...

But then comes the argument where I part company with Rosenberg.

But when you combine core morality with scientism, you get some serious consequences, especially for politics. In particular, you get a fairly left-wing agenda.

Rosenberg’s argument is based on determinism. None of us have “free will” in the dualistic, contra-causal sense, we are all products of the past and of our environment. Whether we were born into a rich family or a poor one, whether we are born with genes that make us talented or not, whether we grow up in an environment that helps us prosper, are all things that we could not choose. Whether we are a millionaire at age 30, or whether we are stuck in a minimum-wage job, is thus largely a lottery of birth.

I assume that Alexander Rosenberg is Jewish, and that he sees Jewish morality as being just a rationalization for whatever evolutionary strategy helps Jews to collectively exploit an evolutionary niche. And his belief in science and science alone leads him to atheism and determinism. He combines all this to become a hard-core leftist/Marxist, as if it is a logical consequence of his other beliefs.

There are many errors here. The absurdity should be obvious to anyone who believes in Christian free will. Rather than list them, I just want to point out this view. Many other prominent Jewish atheist intellectuals hold similar views, such as Sam Harris and Jerry Coyne.

Many of these atheists claim to be extremely rational and knowledgeable about science. But then they tell you to believe in whatever evolution has trained you to believe in! And if you did, you would not believe in either determinism or leftism.